Jerry's Map

What is it?

In the summer of 1963 Jerry began drawing a map of an imaginary city. The work started as a doodle done in the spare time he had while working at a tedious job. He continued to add to that map through the years until, in 1983, he set it aside to put his free time to other use.

It was stored in the attic of his home in Cold Spring, New York. It gathered dust. Jerry’s son, Henry, found it one day while rummaging around. He brought it down and asked what it was. Seeing it then triggered Jerry to dust it off and continue the project.

Years later, the Map is now a two-dimensional “virtual world” art project which is now comprised of over 4000 individual eight by ten inch panels. When assembled, these panels form an approximate circle. The panel locations are defined by N, S, E, and W coordinates that originate at the center of the circle. The locations in the matrix do not change, but the panels themselves are continually revised based on instructions drawn from the artist’s custom deck of cards.

Its execution, in acrylic, marker, colored pencil, ink, collage, and inkjet print on heavy paper, is dictated by the interplay between an elaborate set of rules and randomly generated instructions.

Jerry maintained a blog about the project for many years. He no longer updates it, but the old posts are still available on Blogger. And also be sure to check out r/jerrymapping, an interesting subreddit devoted to map making in the style of Jerry's Map.